"Affectingly honest... A provocative memoir, refreshingly candid and thoughtful."
-Kirkus Reviews
By age 7 "Danny" Bolen knew he was different.
This was a perilous reality in the post-war years of 1950s America. Although a time of widespread economic prosperity and great technological advances, it was also an era of silent oppression, racial segregation, and real danger for anyone who fell outside of society's legally allowed norms.
Dan married a girl in white go-go boots, dropped out of college to become a Jehovah's Witness minister, and discovered he had a gift for employment recruiting that would make him a millionaire before turning 30 (something his Grandma Vera accurately predicted).
Lovingly told, with stark transparency and dry wit and humor, The Courage To Be Courageous is an important book about confronting our struggles, finding our success, and most importantly, stepping into our truth and embracing who we are each meant to be.
DAN BOLEN was born in 1947, in Spokane, Washington, and grew up in Boise, Idaho, and in several places in Alaska. After marrying a girl in white go-go boots and dropping out of college to become a Jehovah's Witness minister, he discovered he had a gift for employment recruiting, a passion that would propel him to great professional and financial success. From 1967 until 2019 he helmed the nationally recognized executive search firms Management Recruiters of Boise and Dan Bolen and Associates. This is his first book.
LANDON J. NAPOLEON is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of fiction and nonfiction books that have been translated into multiple foreign editions. He is a previous Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" finalist and a Kirkus Reviews "Best of 2021" recipient. His debut novel ZigZag was adapted into a film, and his nonfiction biography Burning Shield: The Jason Schechterle Story was an "Arizona Republic Recommends" selection. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Arizona State University and a master's degree in creative writing from University of Glasgow in Scotland. He lives in Arizona.
Industry Reviews
Bolen recounts an impressive career as an employment recruiter and his lifelong struggle to come to grips with his gay identity.
The author began his career in employment staffing with a show of remarkable confidence-in 1969, he showed up at Snelling and Snelling, then the largest employment agency in the United States, and demanded a job. He was 21 years old, a college dropout, and had no relevant work experience. Not only was the author hired, but he became the company's top producer within three months. He had made his first million dollars before the age of 30. In 1985, Bolen started his own firm, Dan Bolen and Associates, which he owned and operated until his retirement in 2018: It was the conclusion to a half-century brimming with financial success and the industry's most coveted accolades. Yet his personal life was a mess. Although Bolen knew he was attracted to men, he assiduously kept his sexual orientation a closely guarded secret. In fact, he buried this truth so deep inside of himself that it outwardly expressed itself as homophobia, a wrenching dilemma that led to suicidal depression. The author's remembrances here are rich and complex-the book begins as a somewhat conventional account of his entrepreneurial success, an almost self-aggrandizing catalog of his "unrelenting drive to succeed." The heart of the story, however, is not his professional life but the personal travails that he concealed behind the curtain of accomplishment. With admirable candor, he discusses his troubled relationship with an abusive father, his two failed marriages, and his challenges as a Jehovah's Witness, a religious sect that finally expelled him. With nuanced sensitivity, Bolen reflects on the emotional toll exacted by living a lie: "Who would I be without the secret? Because I had become the secret." This is an affectingly honest, even confessional life story, one marked by both keen intelligence and fearless self-criticism.
A provocative memoir, refreshingly candid and thoughtful.
~ Kirkus
